


The Annabeth Chase Manual of Guidelines (Some Exceptions May Apply)

by ZoeBug



Series: A Length of Twine (Prompt Jar Drabbles) [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Character Analysis, Character Study, Drabble, F/M, Fluff, Introspection, Prompt Fic, Relationship Study, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 20:34:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7589122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoeBug/pseuds/ZoeBug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompted Drabble: <em>sigurista</em> (adj.) someone who makes sure that everything goes as planned; the kind of person who will not act unless they feel totally sure that the desired result would be obtained</p><p>-</p><p>Annabeth likes patterns. She likes rules. She likes things that she can predict and plan for and work around.</p><p>And yet, there’s Percy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Annabeth Chase Manual of Guidelines (Some Exceptions May Apply)

**Author's Note:**

> Posting as a separate piece cus I realized I really didn't like having one post for all my multi-fandom drabbles. They're easier to find this way and don't bug me to look at ;u;
> 
> It's been far too long since I've written for PJO. I miss these nerds.

_sigurista_

(adj.) someone who makes sure that everything goes as planned; the kind of person who will not act unless they feel totally sure that the desired result would be obtained

* * *

 

Annabeth carves the space for herself into the world around her using strategy. Logic is the way she holds the disparate pieces of herself together as a singular entity in a world that shifts and swirls around her in unpredictable and terrifyingly erratic ways.

Annabeth’s legacy is that of turning chaos into meaning.

Searching for patterns in seemingly unconnected happenings of the world has always been the way Annabeth has kept the looming terror of imminent death at bay since she was young. It’s a method of control; a coping mechanism. She understands that.

As it happens, however, it’s a fairly useful coping mechanism as coping mechanisms go and has a proven track record of scraping the people she loves from death more often than most she’s known people to have.

She wonders idly if anyone’s life has ever been saved by self-deprecating and inappropriately timed humor, before she realizes _hers_ has been. More than once.

Annabeth likes patterns. She likes rules. She likes things that she can predict and plan for and work around.

And yet there’s Percy, reclining on her bunk  a few feet from where she’s scribbling notes out of a book she’d borrowed from Chiron at her desk in the Athena cabin.

He’s tossing Riptide upwards flipping, spinning from his hand―in pen form, of course, because his brain may be full of seaweed but he’s not stupid enough to toss swords around in her cabin―and catching it again before it smacks against his chest.

She sighs. And yet, there’s Percy.

Despite everything, of course, Percy does have his own erratic, _annoying_ -she-doesn’t-remember-fading-into- _endearing_ set of "Percy Guidelines."

If one is ever confused about his tone, for instance, if the statement is spoken to someone he's close with, one should assume he meant it earnestly. If it’s said to someone he doesn’t know well or has just met, usually assume sarcasm.

And there’s the #1 Percy Guideline that she would bold and underline if were written before her: If there is an opportunity to take suffering from a friend and bear it himself in their stead, Percy will do so without thought or hesitation. He will also most likely do so even if an opportunity is not presented.

Percy has a habit of doing that: ignoring the options set out before him in favor of one he creates for himself.

Annabeth wonders what number that rule of Percy behavior would be assigned in the hierarchical list of Percy traits.

She should put a handbook together, Annabeth thinks wryly. “A Guide to Handling Your Percy” she’d call it. Or perhaps “Seaweed Brains for Dummies.” Maybe some sort of subtitle would be in order.

“Annabeth?”

Annabeth turns in her desk chair, still half thought-dazed, to glance over at Percy. Riptide is stilled in his hand now, but his head remains tilted up to gaze at the ceiling. The pen may be stationary but his fingers are not―they rarely are―fiddling with the cap and the tab on the trusty weapon idly. He’s got on arm beneath his head and the soft evening lamplight has his tan skin looking even more bronze-toned than usual.

While Annabeth knows a lot about the rules of how Percy works… there are also a lot of things about him that remain unpredictable, that remain mysterious in their movements through the world regarding this boy before her.

“Hm?” she replies with a soft questioning noise, realizing she’d been mirroring his motions on her own pen that’s now paused and hovering over the paper.

Percy turns to her, rolling his whole head in order to look at her and his bright eyes focus on her with curiosity and the kind of adoration that she still has to fight from making her blush.

“Do you like planning all this stuff for quests?”

Annabeth raises one eyebrow at his question.

“Think who you’re talking to,” she retorts. Percy closes his eyes, his smile softening, and shakes his head.

“No, I mean… your face, when you’re concentrating like this. You don’t look…” He breaks off and his mouth twists to one side like it always does when he’s thinking of how to word something. Annabeth’s more used to seeing it when he addresses the camp or quest parties or is trying to talk his way out of an encounter with some magical being or beast. “You don’t _look_ happy, I guess, when you’re thinking that hard.”

Annabeth snorts and tosses a crumpled up piece of paper at him.

“‘s how my face always looks, seaweed brain.”

“Yeah, okay,” Percy replies with a smile that says they both know he doesn’t mean either of those words.

There.

One of the things Annabeth can’t plan for or predict about Percy Jackson: when and how he smiles at her like that.

She’s narrowed it down, of course; Annabeth is nothing if not meticulous in her endeavors to discover the intricacies of a subjects’ workings and the scientific process _always_ yields some sort of results. For instance, she’s found that smile comes about 67% of the time after she insults him. Another 23% of the time, he gives her an exhausted, exasperated kind of stare. And the remaining 10% is a mixture of other assorted responses.

But that smile sometimes also comes when she says something about an elaborate plan she’s nearly done concocting. And occasionally it will come after making him yelp loudly by sneaking up on him using her Yankee’s cap. And sometimes it comes after she’s dusted a singularly nasty monster (although that’s often mixed with some kind of bright gleam to his eyes and his smile then has more teeth than this particular type contains alone.)

It’s one of the guidelines about Annabeth herself: she despises things that work unpredictably.

It’s hard to hate something you understand (unless that thing is actively trying to kill you or your friends or decimate your city, of course) and so conversely it's easy to hate things you don't. And for Annabeth especially it becomes inevitable that annoyance and frustration give way to something just short of hate when it comes to things that  she cannot plan for or understand.

Which is why Percy Jackson is all the more of a wonder to her.

Not only does he not always follow his unspoken, unknown rules about himself, he doesn’t even follow the ones about _her_.

Percy, she sometimes thinks, has it in his nature to never follow predictable patters. Maybe it's the ocean in him that surges against constraints of any kind. Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with who is father is or what temperament of divinity he has coursing through his blood. Maybe it's the Sally Jackson in him or maybe it's his upbringing or maybe all of it or none and she just doesn't _understand_.

And, above all, she doesn’t know why she has never had it in her to hate him for that.

Perhaps because he’s not trying to kill her or her friends or decimate her city―the opposite in fact. Perhaps it was easier in the beginning for her to accept an unknown entity if the the things she did understand about him to begin with added up to “ally.” Before adding up to “friend.” Before adding up to-

“I don’t have to look happy every time I _am_ happy,” Annabeth mutters and turns back to her notes. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Percy’s face still alight with that damned unpredictable enigma of a smile.

Under the pretense of flipping a few pages of the reference book, she continues to watch him as he leans back against the headboard and tilts his head once more toward the ceiling.

“Mmm.” It’s a small noise of understanding he makes then as he begins to toss Riptide up in the air once more, catching it when Annabeth sighs in exasperation but doesn’t turn again to look again when she speaks.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Percy says and tosses Riptide again and his words have the shape of a shrug to them. “I just like when I feel like I understand you a little more.”

Annabeth’s pen stops abruptly, halfway through spelling out the word _intermittent_ leaving the second “i” waiting for its dot. It seems to hang unfinished on the page before her like the moment Riptide hits the top of Percy’s toss and the energy of the throw and gravity battle in midair for a stretching second before the pen is dragged back down for him to catch.

Annabeth lets out a breath through her nose and dots the second “i” in _intermittent_ and turns the page of the book beside her.

“Percy Jackson, I don’t know what to think about you sometimes.” The words are soft and muttered and frustrated and affectionate all at once and it’s another things she feels she should normally hate according to "The Annabeth Handbook" that Percy renders a less finite fact of the universe.

Because there Percy is, a few feet away from her and she can see him smiling with his eyes still trained on the ceiling as he tosses Riptide into the air again. And she doesn't entirely understand the way he works and she's never going to stop trying to and she doesn't understand―another thing, _gods above―_ why she's somehow okay with that.

“Coming from you, I take that as a compliment.” He snatches Riptide out of the air with his free hand, the motion accompanied by a satisfying _smack_ of a noise.

Annabeth wonders if there will ever come a day when she’ll fully figure out Percy Jackson―if there will ever come a day when he will stop surprising her.

A small part of her hopes not. And the rest of her realizes maybe she has yet to fully figure out the rules that govern Annabeth when she’s with Percy. It makes her want to explore the hypothesis that it's a rule of Percy's―that, when it comes to him, the rules no longer apply.

Variable X, that boy is, she thinks and realizes it’s another exception to her understanding of "The Annabeth Guidelines" that she is smiling at something that she doesn’t―and might never―understand.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos always appreciated!  
>   
> [fanfic/podfic blog](http://zoe-bug.tumblr.com/) | [personal](http://xiexiecaptain.tumblr.com/) | [twitter](https://twitter.com/xiexiecaptain)


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